Yes, one could. The problem is most programmers who are not aware of this (probably most), will see the UUID and make assumptions that uniqueidentifier type is

Yes, one could. The problem is most programmers who are not aware of this (probably most), will see the UUID and make assumptions that uniqueidentifier type is the most suited one. They are less likely to take a ULID and store it in binary(16). (Might store it in char(26), which is less storage efficient but is still sorted.) Apart from that I happen to LIKE the fact that I can very quickly see the difference between a random identifier and a sorted identifier, they have quite different characteristics after all.. Although I guess people might eventually get used to the initial bytes being 0 on UUIDv7, or just learn to recognize the version bytes.. On that topic, why are the 8 fixed bits of a UUID not concentrated on the same byte. Perhaps the first one. Huge mistake..